One of the interesting things about running a wordpress blog is being able to see how people find your webpage and for what purpose. Lately, one of my recent posts on The History of Love has been getting some traffic. Before I go further, let me explain that I am co-chair of the University of Texas Arlington OneBook Program, which selects a book for all incoming first year students to read. The book for 2008-2009 is The History of Love and I’ve been collaborating with many people at UT Arlington to generate resources that will help students with this book. Many of those resources have been posted on the OneBook homepage, others on the OneBook newsletter and once, recently, I published some notes on The History of Love on this page. Now classes have started and as I look at my wordpress control panel I see the following list of search terms that people are utilizing to find their way to my blog and its individual posts.
The last search term is interesting: essays “the history of love”. Here we go again– the irresistible impulse to use the web to find something that will help someone at my university understand the book. Or, at worst, plagiarism-in-progress (the penalties of which can be severe).
What is ironic is that the most valuable resources available to students on the web about The History of Love are materials that are READILY available on our UTA websites and in our publications, such as our deluxe Study Guide (here) and our outstanding library subject guide. Also, our Facebook group is open and awaiting students who want to use it for the purpose of asking questions. (At present, there is an open thread on the Facebook group that will take student questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them and get a good conversation going.)
People in this group are standing by, willing to help students who need it and who are genuinely interested in having a conversation about the book! But those students who are looking for 35 pre-written essays on The History of Love on the world wide web, they will not find them!
2 Comments
August 30, 2008 at 5:20 pm
[...] more on this subject, go here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The History of Love by Nicole Krauss– or, [...]
October 14, 2008 at 10:11 am
We are united in our love to ‘The History of Love’.
I have summarized six creative writing ideas gained from this book:
1. no antagonist
2. unconventional start
3. the death topic
4. syncopated rhythm
5. identifying with a character
6. great sayings